


Bastille Day

by MykaWells



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Bastille Day, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Paris (City), Romance, Time Travel, death reference
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-26 21:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5020666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MykaWells/pseuds/MykaWells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helena meets a mysteriously familiar woman on her yearly pilgrimage to a Paris cemetery...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bastille Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RR_Duscan (damozel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/damozel/gifts).



> I'd had this idea bouncing around in my head for over a year, then the Femslash Exchange gave me the motivation I needed to actually write the thing. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Side Note: For the sake of clarity on a few details here, in this fic the time machine functions as Helena designed it, wherein the person time travelling occupies another person's body and cannot change the past, not as Paracelsus re-designed it...

July 14, 1896-Paris, France

Helena walked down the crowded, busy sidewalk quickly and with her head down. She did not feel much like interacting with other people, and avoiding eye contact, she’d found, was a top notch way to keep from having to do so. She’d opted to dress in men’s wear for this particular excursion and tucked her hair up under her hat. With her head down, walking at a brisk pace, a passerby might mistake her for a petite man with delicate features. Helena liked it that way; she found that a men’s waistcoat and the appearance of short hair worked wonders for curtailing unwanted male attention.

Helena had already been walking for a long time through the streets of Paris, about an hour, and her feet were starting to get a bit sore. She knew she probably should have paid for a carriage ride, but it was _the_ French holiday, so the roads were a nightmare to navigate on foot, let alone in a carriage. Besides, Helena decided that she would rather not have to answer the driver’s inevitable questions in her pidgin French about where she was going and what she was doing there. No one needed to know that. So Helena chose to walk, just as she had done for the past few years on this exact date.

She walked until the crowds started to thin out. People were still milling about, but there was at least room to breathe. Helena took a sudden right down a side street, then by a small park and towards her destination, straight ahead. Helena had to walk through the gently sloping grassy field, past the tightly bunched headstones. It was during this part of Helena’s yearly ritual that she always quickened her pace and kept her head down. There was never anyone around, but there were simply some things that Helena did not want to see.

Helena slowed as she approached the steps of the small stone chapel. It was just three steps up to the wooden door. Helena pulled it open and stepped inside.

She paused just inside the door, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. It was always much cooler in this building, a refreshing change from the unusually muggy, soupy heat that had settled over the city.

Helena opened her eyes and walked down the center aisle towards the cross at the front of the empty chapel. She sat in the fourth pew from the front, her usual spot for this ritual. As she sat, Helena made the sign of the cross then folded her hands in her lap.

It was an old habit, making the sign of the cross. Helena was not a religious person; five years and one day ago, she might have passed for one, since she’d considered herself something of an agnostic Christian. Now, on this day in particular, Helena couldn’t help being anything but an atheist.

It was ironic, then, that she had this yearly pilgrimage, that she felt a compulsion to come to this chapel, sit in front of this cross. Helena could not say how long she usually sat there. Sometimes she would offer what might pass for a prayer, which was really more a moment of mediation. This was simply the space where she felt calmest. There was a silence, a stillness, that Helena found she needed at times like this one. She needed to be alone, away from everyone she knew.

No one knew where she went on these days. Even Charles was clueless, though not for lack of trying. This year he’d actually pleaded with Helena, claiming that she shouldn’t be alone at times like these. Helena disagreed and snapped that he had no idea what she needed. She’d turned sharply around and walked out the door with just the small suitcase she had packed and headed for Paris. He didn’t even try to follow.

Of course, there were plenty of chapels that Helena could have found that were closer to London. But this one was closest to the reason Helena needed to be alone. This chapel was closest to Christina.

Helena inhaled sharply, as she always did when the memory of seeing Christina’s body flashed without warning behind her eyes. She leaned over and rested her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

It was then she heard footsteps, slow, quiet footsteps. In the years that she’d been coming here, Helena had never seen another person in this chapel. Helena lifted her head and turned around to see who it was.

The visitor was another woman, a woman with dirty blond hair dressed in traditionally masculine attire. She wore a pressed white shirt and a fitted waistcoat with matching black pants. Despite the male attire, there was still a softness, a femininity about the woman that Helena had forcibly suppressed in herself for this trip.

The visitor looked embarrassed, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. Perhaps she’d been staring, because she blushed and looked suddenly away.

“ _Bonjour_ ,” Helena said in hushed tones, nodding politely.

The woman nodded awkwardly and slid into the bench across the aisle, doing the sign of the cross as she knelt down.

Helena tried to go back to her ritual, but it was harder to do with another person in the room. The building was no less quiet, but Helena had an odd sensation, this feeling that she couldn’t shake, that she couldn’t even describe. It was just enough to distract her.

Helena glanced over at the woman again, and caught her eye yet again. Neither one of them had been praying. The woman swallowed, but this time did not look immediately away. She even offered a small smile. There was a sense of familiarity there, in the way that the woman looked at her. It was soft and affectionate and warm.

“ _Pardonne-moi_ ,” Helena said. She paused when the woman looked over at her. She could not think of the right words in French to say what she wanted to, so instead she said. “ _Parlez vous anglais_?”

The woman smiled warmly and nodded.

“Far better than I speak French,” the woman said. Her accent was unusual though. It was as though American diction was struggling against a French accent.

But, more than that, there was another glimpse of that warmth, a familiarity that Helena found so unusual in a complete stranger. Even more unusual, however, was the sense that it felt right.

“I’m sorry, do we know each other?” Helena asked.

“Not yet,” the woman said, and smiled to herself, as if party to some inside joke. She stood from her seat and gestured to the bench where Helena sat. “May I?”

Helena nodded. She should be angry that this woman was invading her space, disrupting her yearly ritual in so profound a way. But Helena wasn’t upset at all. She found the woman’s energy comforting, a calming influence on the frayed nerves she always got at this time of year.

Helena scooted over and the woman sat next to Helena. The woman looked straight ahead as if contemplating the altar. She didn’t appear to be deep in prayer though. She just appeared to be waiting, whether for Helena to speak or for some sort of revelation, Helena could not tell.

“I lost someone too, you know,” the woman finally said.

“Why would you assume that I lost someone?” Helena asked.

“I can just tell these things,” the woman said cryptically. “I’m good with context clues.”

Helena smiled humorlessly. Much as she tried to act as if she hadn’t been irrevocably broken by Christina’s death, she felt as if she could never quite pull it off. Most people never pointed that out, never mentioned Christina at all unless she brought it up first. Helena liked that this woman was willing to say what those closest to her couldn’t.

“It was five years ago,” Helena said. “I lost my daughter five years ago today. She would be thirteen if she were still here.”

The woman nodded, as if she’d been expecting just that information.

“I would say I’m sorry,” the woman said thoughtfully as she kept looking straight ahead. “But that doesn’t make it much better, does it?”

Helena shook her head and looked down at her hands.

“No, it doesn’t,” Helena said. “But I’m not certain what else we’re suppose to say in the face of another’s loss. That’s one of the impenetrable mysteries of the universe I suppose.”

“I think it’s because we’re not suppose to say anything at all,” the woman said to herself as much to Helena. “I think we’re just suppose to listen. Even when there aren’t any words to be said.”

Helena let a second lapse before she answered. This woman was right. Helena hated that nothing made it better, that no words or actions made loss any easier or less excruciating. No one besides this woman had ever dared to admit that to Helena. Helena deeply appreciated that honesty, but wished even more deeply that there wasn’t so much truth to it.

“I think you might be right,” Helena said, looking down at her hands, which were clasped loosely in her lap like she’d just finished some half hearted prayer. “Nothing seems to make it better.”

Helena saw out of the corner of her eye as the woman turned her head to watch Helena. She wasn’t examining or observing, as one might normally do while speaking to a stranger. It was softer than that, more familiar. Helena kept her eyes on her hands, because she didn’t know what to do with this woman and her soft gaze.

The woman looked away and back at the cross in front of them. She let the silence stretch on for awhile, perhaps test her theory about listening to the silence.

“You know,” she said thoughtfully. “You’re a wonderful mother. I can tell.”

Helena smiled humorlessly and ran a hand through her hair.

“And, how, precisely, are you able to tell that?”

“You love her,” the woman said. “You loved her enough to make her your happiest place.”

That made Helena look up, directly at the taller woman. Helena had never told anyone that. She hadn’t even told Wolcott or Chatarunga, her closest confidantes that, in her entire life, being with Christina was the only time where she felt the kind of happiness that comes from pure, selfless love.

“How—

“I’m good at reading people,” the woman said.

Helena suspected there was more to it, but she just nodded. She rubbed her hands over her knees, then balled her fists. She sighed.

“What about you then?” Helena asked. “You said you lost someone as well?”

The woman nodded.

“I did,” she said. “I lost someone I cared for, someone I loved. The details aren’t important.”

Helena watched the woman in profile. The woman swallowed and shook her head.

“It was just so senseless,” she finally said. “That’s the hardest part, that there’s no logic to it.”

Helena didn’t say anything. She breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly, allowing this woman her silence. Helena couldn’t resist a completely uncharacteristic impulse to reach out and hold the woman’s hand.

The woman looked at Helena. She squeezed Helena’s hand before Helena could second guess herself and pull away.

“Is it alright if I stay here?” the woman asked. “With you?”

Helena opened her mouth to answer, then shut it and nodded. She didn’t know why, but Helena felt she needed for the woman to stay, needed her company desperately, which was strange considering the fact that she hadn’t even known this woman twenty minutes earlier.

“I’d like that very much,” Helena said.

Their eyes met for a moment and Helena wasn’t sure what it was, but there was a flash of something there, something, yet again, so achingly, mysteriously familiar. More than familiar, it was intimate.

For the first time in her yearly pilgrimage to this chapel, Helena felt the briefest flash of something other than a gnawing emptiness.

“Do you think we might go for a walk though?” Helena asked. “Away from...here.”

The woman nodded and smiled.

“That sounds wonderful,” she said.

* * *

 Helena allowed her companion to lead the way, not least of all because she wasn’t sure where to go if one wanted to take a leisurely stroll in this part of the city. She’d only ever been to these parts on what one might call business. She also suspected that allowing the woman to lead the way might offer some hint, some small bit of information that might shed some light on Helena’s new friend.

One thing Helena was learning in the few minutes since leaving the cemetery was that the woman was a wealth of information. She offered fascinating bit of trivia with each different street she took Helena down, as if a very well prepared tour guide.

She was unapologetically enthusiastic too. Too many women, Helena thought, were forced to be apologetic about shows of intelligence in traditionally male dominated fields like history, or at the very least felt they needed to disguise such shows of intelligence.

For all her strong willed independence, Helena found herself doing the very same thing; she’d stepped back and allowed her brother to take credit for her own brilliance. And much as those closest to her and Charles had their suspicions, Helena had kept the secret. It was now simply a matter of convenience, to allow the charade to continue, rather than any particular urge or need to hide her own genius. But she’d done it nonetheless.

There was not a trace of that kind of inclination in the woman with the strange, almost American accent. Helena had never met anyone quite like her. It felt almost like she was from another world entirely.

Helena’s tour guide took a sharp right turn down a busy street, taking Helena’s hand as they wove their way through the crowd. The woman glanced back and smiled so brilliantly that Helena couldn’t help smiling back as they took another right and suddenly found them selves on a much wider, though no less crowded road.

As Helena walked quickly to keep up with her guide’s long, quick stride, she started to recognize her surroundings a bit more, and knew exactly where she was when the woman came to a stop halfway across the bridge.

“ _Pont Concorde_ ,” Helena said, resting her hands on the stone of the bridge. She kept her eyes on the horizon for only a moment before turning back to her companion. “What brings us here?”

“What do you think of this place?”

Helena shrugged at the non-answer.

“It’s a nice view, but...I don’t know,” Helena said, wrinkling her nose. “These statues, with all the generals. It seems pretty militaristic, even jingoistic to me. And it is French, so that is not to its benefit.”

The woman smiled fondly.

“Well, there’s not much I can do about the French part,” she said. “But would it help to know that this bridge, this display intent on establishing power, is built using the stones of the Bastille?”

Helena shrugged.

“Not particularly,” she said. “Bastille was a symbol of oppressive power in its own right.”

The woman sighed and turned to face the horizon. Helena watched her in profile.

“But all these people,” she said with a faint grin. “All these people aren’t here on Bastille Day to celebrate that, are they? They’re celebrating independence, the very date that historians will use to mark the start of modern history.”

Helena had all kinds of pessimistic retorts available, about how needlessly bloody that particular revolution turned out being, how it had temporarily devolved into a different, though no less brutal, kind of tyranny. But those retorts died on her lips when the woman turned and met her gaze and she looked so hopeful.

For the first time in a long time Helena realized that this day could be something other than a miserable reminder of bad, bloody things. It could offer something, some glimmer of promise and hope, or at the very least, a reminder that she had successfully made it through another year.

“You’re remarkable,” Helena said without having made any conscious decision to say it.

The woman wrinkled her nose and looked down then away.

Helena reached out and gently lifted her chin so that their eyes would meet. She hesitated, her eyes flicking down to the woman’s lips. The woman’s breath caught in her throat though she never took her eyes off Helena’s.

Helena leaned in to press her lips to the woman’s lips and she found that it felt surprisingly...familiar. She felt as if kissing this woman was something she’d done before, and that they were now quite good at it. Good enough, Helena thought hazily, that the kiss was bordering on indecent display of affection, even by French standards.

“Well then,” Helena said breathlessly when she pulled away. “I seem to have a bit of a problem now.”

Her companion’s face fell and she stepped back.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I, we can forget that even happened,” she said.

“I would much rather remember a kiss like that,” Helena said. “My problem is that I’ve had these surprisingly intimate, familiar conversations with you, and now I’ve kissed you, and I’ve yet to even learn your name. It hardly seems fair. You know my name, after all.”

The woman half smirked.

“That is by design,” she said. “I prefer to remain a mystery.”

“But surely revealing your first name won’t do any harm,” Helena said.

The woman’s lips pressed into a thin line that might have been suppressing a smirk and she shook her head.

“Alright, woman of mystery,” Helena said, “At the very least give me a name I might use when I write of this experience in my diary.”

“I’m diary worthy, am I?” the other woman said as she raised an eyebrow playfully.

“That is yet to be determined,” Helena said.

The other woman, still smiling, rolled her eyes and stepped back.

“Well, when you make that decision, maybe I’ll give you my name,” she said, taking another step back before turning her back to Helena. “While waiting, I think I’ll explore this magnificent city a bit more.”

The woman started walking away, so Helena had no choice to hurry after her. When Helena caught up, the woman squeezed Helena’s hand and smiled as she pulled her to their next destination.

* * *

By the time they’d finished their tour, the sun was starting to set and the crowd was thickening in anticipation of the fireworks show that the city would put on about an hour after sunset. Helena followed her strange companion as they wove their way through the crowd. Helena hadn’t a clue what their next destination was, and it suddenly struck her as odd that she’d been effectively following a stranger around Paris for the past few hours. Not good or bad. Just strange.

Helena was lost in her thoughts on this subject, on how much she’d enjoyed the companionship of a total stranger, when she felt something collide with her leg. It wasn’t that unusual in such a large crowd, so she simply glanced down. What she saw stopped Helena in her tracks as an involuntary gasp slipped through her lips. If she hadn’t known any better, Helena would have sworn it was 8 year old Christina looking up at her. The dark curly hair, big brown eyes, and bright enthusiastic smile, it was all Christina.

Helena froze on the spot, and her companion stopped too.

“ _Pardonne moi_ ,” the little girl said, smiling up at Helena, then she added something else in French that Helena didn’t catch because she was too busy staring.

She knelt down slowly in front of the girl and thought vaguely of how strange this must look to not only her companion, who hadn’t a clue what Christina looked like. Helena smiled at the girl, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes, because, god, she really did look like Christina. Helena bent forwards and gave the girl a kiss on the forehead.

The girl just smiled vaguely, shrugged her shoulders, then ran off after a woman about Helena’s age. Probably her mother.

Helena stood up and stared after her. She was unaware that she’d been shaking until her companion touched her shoulder.

Helena turned sharply to face the woman, who she expected to look a bit puzzled by the intensity of her reaction. The American didn’t look confused at all though. She appeared to have known exactly what just happened. She reached up and rested a hand and rubbed her thumb across Helena’s cheek.

“I have a room,” she said. Helena felt the woman’s hand quiver against her skin. “It’s a long walk, but quiet. It’s nice and quiet. Do you want to--

Helena nodded immediately, swallowing as she tried to catch her breath. She didn’t know what precisely it was an invitation to do in that room, but it was nice, no, necessary, for Helena to get away from what now felt was an overwhelming crush of people.

The woman gave Helena a small, tentative smile and took her hand to squeeze it. Then, in no particular rush this time, she led Helena away from the crowd.

* * *

 The walk was, indeed, quite long, though it did offer some much needed time for Helena to collect herself. She didn’t have to devote any mental energy to navigating the streets, since her companion still led Helena by the hand. The woman hadn’t bothered trying to engage Helena in conversation either, at least not until Helena found her voice again.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I, that little girl…

“She looked like your daughter,” the woman said quickly. “There’s no reason to be sorry.”

“No,” Helena said. “I was actually starting to have one of my good days. And it’s just little things like that. They paralyze me and I can’t see or think of anything else.”

The woman didn’t immediately answer.

“You know, Helena,” she said. “You’re far stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

Helena was inclined to disagree, but didn’t say as much. The woman had spoke with such conviction that she didn’t dare contradict her.

They walked on in silence for a moment before Helena’s tour guide spoke again, this time without looking at Helena.

“Myka,” the woman said, as if that strange arrangement of syllables was meant to convey some deeper meaning.

Helena glanced quisically at the woman in profile to see a small smile playing around her lips.

"My name is Myka," She hesitated a moment, then added. “You can call me Myka in your diary, should you choose to write about me.”

“I think you might warrant a page or two,” Helena said with a small smile to herself, reaching out and taking Myka’s hand. “You’re the only person who has ever managed to make this day tolerable. It’s as if you know me better than anyone else.”

The woman, Myka, looked down, then straight ahead down the street. She was blushing as she bit her lip and contemplated what she might say next. She squeezed Helena’s hand.

“It would appear so,” she said with a small smile as if party to some inside joke.

Helena was about to ask what that joke was, and where precisely she’d become such an expert when Myka came to an abrupt stop.

“This is where I’m staying,” she said, gesturing to a small inn that appeared pretty old, though not terribly rundown. “Not ideal, but the best I could find on sort notice over the holiday.”

“Are the beds clean?”

“They seem to be,” Myka said, fidgeting in her pocket before tentatively pulling out her key.

“Then I’ll have no complaints,” Helena said, and for the first time that day, she led Myka towards their next destination.

* * *

As soon as they entered the room, and Myka had closed and locked the door, they stood looking at each other for several long seconds. Helena didn’t dare make a move, because she was not certain what, precisely, the woman intended when she’d invited Helena back to her room. Kissing a dashing woman who passed for a man on a beautiful bridge in the middle of Paris was one thing. Kissing and touching said woman, pulling her hair down, touching her, allowing her to you in the privacy of a small, dimly lit hotel was something else entirely.

So Helena didn’t move towards Myka. She stood stock still as Myka moved towards her, hesitantly at first, then quicker and with more authority, as if a magnet being pulled with increasing force towards Helena. Then her lips collided with Helena’s and their bodies met with such force that Myka had Helena stumbled back against the door.

If the kiss on the bridge had been bordering on indecent, then this kiss was downright obscene. It was all lips and tongues and hands, hands pulling urgently, desperately at Helena. Helena was surprised by the intensity, by the way that this woman, this Myka, seemed to have bottled up then released all this passion at once.

Helena was not opposed to the level of enthusiasm though. She was pleasantly surprised that a woman would demonstrated desire in a way that was so...uninhibited. It was unusual in Helena’s experience, unusual and incredibly arousing.

Helena kissed back with equal passion, pushing away from the door as she lunged forward to kiss Myka’s neck. Myka’s eyes fluttered closed and she sighed as Helena kissed just below her ear. Helena took this as encouragement and moved further away from the door and towards the bed, pulling Myka with her.

Helena pushed Myka onto the bed, fortunately a full sized one, and moved quickly to straddle Myka’s hips. She knelt over Myka for a moment, then removed her hat.

Myka stared up at her, inhaling sharply as Helena's dark hair fell down around Helena’s shoulders. She reached up and wrapped it around her hand, pulling gently so that Helena’s lips where just a few inches from her own.

“You’re perfect,” she said, and with such reverence, such gravity, that Helena half believed it despite knowing that it wasn’t even close to true.

“You’re perfect,” she murmured again, before pulling Helena in for a kiss, less bruising this time, but no less passionate.

They kissed like that for awhile, Myka’s hand’s running aimlessly over Helena’s body before Myka pulled away breathlessly.

“Let me make love to you,” Myka said, then her voice nearly cracked as she added. “Just one time, just this once.”

“Why only once?” Helena asked, placing a quick kiss on Myka’s neck. “I can assure you that I have more stamina than that.”

“I can’t stay,” Myka said. “I have to leave in the morning, and, I can’t stay, Helena.”

“A fleeting romance then?” Helena asked.

Her tone had been teasing, because, despite how wonderful and breathtaking this woman was, she hadn’t had any illusions about the fact that these things, these wonderful, shining moments in time never did last. Christina's death had been proof of that, and Helena hadn’t sustained a long term romance since then.

Myka smiled ruefully and reached up to tuck a hair behind Helena’s ear.

“Something like that,” she said softly without taking her eyes off Helena.

Helena nodded and swallowed, before smiling down at Myka.

“Now,” she said, still smiling at Myka. “I recall you saying something about making love to me.”

 

* * *

Helena lay in a pleasant, half-asleep haze, resting on her back with her arm under her head and Myka's arm thrown around her bare waist. Myka was also awake, but just barely, her chin resting on Helena's shoulder. It was a surprisingly cozy, intimate position, one that Helena found she actually quite enjoyed, which was strange because Helena generally didn't do cuddling, at least not with a one night fling.

But this particular fling had said she had to leave in the morning, and it was still the evening, so Helena saw no harm in allowing some cuddling for the time being. She let her eyes flutter closed and a smile snuck onto her lips without her having made the decision consciously. She could not even say exactly why she was smiling.

Well, the sex had been rather remarkable. More than remarkable, it had been necessary. Helena had always enjoyed sex and the feeling she got from it, but she had never been one to feel like she needed it to feel fulfilled. Sex had always been a diversion, a very enjoyable way to pass the time. This time though, this had felt different.

Helena needed this, she realized. She needed this intimacy. And this Myka, this woman she had know less than twenty four hours had given that to her. She'd been hard and passionate, using nails and teeth and tongue when Helena needed it, needed to drown in the sensation. Then, when it threatened to become too much she'd soothed Helena with soft, light lips and delicate fingers.

It was like the woman knew Helena, inside and out. The more Helena thought about it, the more she became certain that she must have met Myka before. She had a passing fancy that maybe time travel was possible after all, and this woman was from her future. She would certainly have to try looking into that one more time. In the meantime though, they were exceptionally well suited to one another. It seemed a shame that such compatibility be wasted on a single romantic encounter.

Myka shifted sleepily and Helena felt her eyelids flutter open.

"Hey," Myka said sleepily, snuggling closer. “What are you thinking about?”

Helena wrapped her arm around Myka.

"That I wish you could stay," she heard herself say, just above whisper. "Stay with me."

Helena felt Myka shake her head.

"I can't," she said. "I wish I could, but I have to go. If it was humanly possible, I-but it's not."

"Why?" Helena asked. She didn't want to demand answers, but she was sincerely curious about why this woman, who was all but clinging to Helena at the moment, would insist on leaving in a few hours.

“You’ll understand eventually,” Myka said. “And I know you probably could pretty easily, but please don’t try to find me.”

Helena looked down and met Myka’s eyes for a long moment, then pressed a soft kiss to her lips.

“I will have to take your word for it,” Helena said. “Although, as a rule, telling me not to do something is an excellent way to make sure I do that very thing.”

“Please--

“I will, however, make this one exception,” Helena added quickly when she felt Myka tense. “No tracking or tailing or anything of the sort, I promise.”

“Thank you,” Myka said, tracing her finger up and down Helena’s bare stomach. Myka rested her head back on Helena’s shoulder.

“You’re very welcome,” Helena said, then added quickly to keep the mood light. “Now, speaking of cloak and daggers, I’ve been meaning to ask what your thoughts are on the Sherlock Holmes series.”

Helena felt Myka smile against her skin before she set off on a lengthy discussion of the merits of the series, and her theories for a potential revival of the popular character. Helena laughed at that idea, insisted that she knew Sir Arthur, and that he would never revisit a story once he’d washed his hands of it. Myka laughed at that and decided to double down and make some even more preposterous claims about the future of the series.

And so it went. The banter was easy and fun, and conversation flowed seemlessly from one topic to another, from Holmes to fictional representations of the future to the evolving roles of women in those works of fiction, to the fact that those men refusing to accept such changes were the equivalent of Neanderthals.

They talked and talked for hours. Helena was tired, exhausted, mentally and physically, but she didn’t want to fall asleep and miss any of her precious few hours with this remarkable woman. She often just listened to Myka talk, only speaking to prompt her to keep talking. Helena ran her hands through Myka’s hair as she listened to the woman talk about all the incredible possible uses for electricity. It gave Helena ideas, world changing, paradigm shifting ideas, ideas that normally would have had Helena jumping out of bed in search of her nearest notebook. But she was so very tired, and so terribly comfortable with Myka’s warm naked body pressed against her own.

She hummed sleepily  in agreement with Myka and felt her eyes droop shut.

“Are you falling asleep on me?” Myka asked teasingly.

“No,” Helena said, her eyes snapping open. “Wide awake, darling.”

“That’s too bad,” Myka said. “I was hoping to get to watch you sleep.”

Helena closed her eyes again and smiled softly.

“Well, that doesn’t sound at all voyeuristic,” she said.

Myka shrugged and the bed shifted as she propped herself up to give Helena a quick kiss on the cheek before settling back on the bed.

“Go to sleep,” she said. “I promise to wake you before I leave.”

Helena wanted to argue, wanted to sit up and pull the other woman closer, to make love to her one more time. But her body had other ideas. Emotionally and physically exhausted beyond words, Helena felt herself falling more rapidly than she had in years into a deep, restful sleep.

* * *

That sleep lasted for what felt like two minutes, though it must have been longer, because, instead of the weak, pre-dawn rays of light she’d fallen asleep to, sun was flooding into the room. Helena reached out to the other side of the bed and felt only cool sheets.

She sat up abruptly, expecting an empty room and no sign of Myka. Helena was surprised by how bereft she felt at the thought of not having said goodbye to the mysterious woman.

She didn’t have long to worry about that though, because, in the next instant, she saw the woman sitting in a chair  at a tiny table by the window, looking out over the street below. She was already fully dressed, and appeared to have been up and ready to go for awhile.

Myka did not immediately notice Helena watching her. She looked to be deep in thought, contemplating some far off thing, some distant, just out of reach memory.

Helena watched for a moment, memorizing the way Myka’s fingers rested on the beat up old table just under that window, the way they absently traced patterns on the marked up wood, coming close to, but never quite touching the envelope that sat on the middle of the table.

Helena knew in that moment, in that quite, slow space, that she would not soon forget this woman, this remarkable, maddeningly mysterious woman. She wasn’t in love, no, that would be a remarkably foolish, impossible thing to do. But it certainly felt like something close to it.

Helena inhaled sharply as the feeling washed over her and Myka looked over to her. Grinning when she saw that Helena was awake.

“Good morning,” she said simply as she got up from the chair and picked up the envelope. She stood where she was, hesitating for a second before crossing the small room and sitting down on the bed, angling herself to face Helena.

“Good morning,” Helena said. “You’re up early.”

“That would imply that I slept,” Myka said, looking down at the envelope.

“So you did watch me sleep after all then,” Helena said, reaching out to still Myka’s fidgety hands.

Myka nodded, then lunged forward for what felt like the most desperately urgent kiss that they’d shared. Her hands were on Helena’s shoulder, then her neck, then in her hair, like the woman wanted to feel everything, but was running out of time. When she pulled away, she rested her forehead against Helena’s and closed her eyes while they both caught their breath.

Then Myka collected herself and sat up steeling herself for whatever was coming next. Helena sat up too, only realizing she was still naked when Myka’s eyes drifted momentarily to her bare chest.

“I have to go,” she said, swallowing and looking directly at Helena. “I have to go really soon, but I wanted to give you...I didn’t want to leave you here. Alone.”

“Not least of all because you probably should not check out of an inn when there is still a naked woman sleeping in your room,” Helena said.

A joke, she thought, might lighten the mood a bit. Helena did not, after all, want this overwhelmingly positive experience to become some kind of tragedy.

Myka did offer a weak smile, though her eyes weren’t in it. She looked down at the paper in her hand.

“I assume you’ve heard of Roentgen’s X-ray?” she asked.

Helena furrowed her brow and nodded her head. She had, in fact, heard of Roentgen’s ray, ad nauseum, from Nikola, had even briefly looked into it herself. That didn’t change the fact that Helena hadn’t a clue what that had to do with their current conversation.

Myka held out the envelope she’d been fidgeting with.

Helena took it and made to rip it open, but Myka grabbed Helena’s hand to stop her.

“This letter explains everything,” Myka said. “But I want you to wait. Wait until they can use Roentgen’s ray to create a device that can detect motion through walls. Even if you figure out who I am, I want you to wait.”

“That is...oddly specific,” Helena said.

Myka shrugged.

“I thought it would make things interesting,” she said. “You never know when it’s going to happen. It sounds fantastically futuristic though, doesn’t it?”

“They do seem to be making great strides in just the past few months,” Helena said. “I can’t imagine it will be all that long.”

Myka laughed, like there was yet another inside joke that Helena had missed out on.

“You’re optimistic,” she said.

“Not quite. I simply live on hope,” Helena said.

And it was true. She lived on hope, hope that the world would become better, that science would make the world a better, brighter place, that there might someday, somehow, be a way to resurrect her Christina. And Helena would continue to cling to that hope because she saw no better way. She would live on hope, cling to her hopeless hope, becaus there was no suitable alternative. Helena would go mad without it.

Helena was brought back to herself by Myka’s fingers gently tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Hope is a good thing,” Myka said. “For example, I hope that you will remember me. No matter how long it takes to get those x-rays working.”

Helena smiled and traced her nails lightly up Myka’s arm.

“You will remember me, won’t you?” Myka asked softly.

Helena leaned forward and kissed Myka.

“I can assure you that I will be comparing every lover I have for the rest of my life with you, darling,” Helena said. “You are a truly incredible woman.”

Myka smiled, dazzlingly bright for a second before she caught herself and tempered her reaction. Helena wished she hadn’t because that smile, uninhibited and happy and relieved, was one of the most beautiful things she’d seen in a long time.

“I think I might have to say the same,” Myka said, leaning over as if she was going to kiss Helena, instead reaching for Helena’s shirt which was resting rumpled on the other side of her. Myka handed it to Helena and sat back up.

“Now get dressed,” she said, still smiling. “I have just enough time for one walk before I leave.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have ideas for a continuation of this fic, but ran out of time to actually write it. It can be arranged though if anyone is interested? Thanks for reading!


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